I was in armour, and so was Brasidas, but I didn’t even take an aspis when I leapt from my ship into his. We clasped arms and I was glad for us both that we had not gone ship to ship a few days before — there was no hatred between us, or even anger.
‘I don’t want to run any more,’ he said with a shrug. ‘And the Phoenicians didn’t play fair this morning with fresh water, so my crew is parched. I have heard you are a fair man and have men of Chios among your people.’
Brasidas looked him over. ‘Did you fight at Salamis?’ he asked.
Phayllos shrugged. ‘We fought, and fought well,’ he said.
Brasidas gave me the movement of his eyebrows with which he expressed approval and admiration.
‘Are you worth a ransom?’ I asked.
‘I am, and so is my nephew,’ he said. He pulled under his arm a very thin, not very handsome young man in beautiful armour. The fit of the armour almost made the boy — and I use the term carefully — look like a man.
But despite his spotty face and his starveling build, the boy had a certain presence and good manners. He bent his knee. ‘It is an honour to be taken captive by the famous Arimnestos of Plataea,’ he said.
Brasidas laughed outright. He didn’t speak, but his laughter spoke volumes.
‘You made no bargain,’ I said. ‘I could take the two of you and clear your benches over the sides — in pursuit, it’s within the laws of war.’
Phayllos was a brave man. He was afraid, but he bore it with nobility. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I told the oarsmen and the marines that very thing.’
I nodded. Brasidas did his eyebrow thing again. We were in agreement that these were good men and deserved decent treatment. I’m not saying that, had they been oily or arrogant, we’d have massacred their crews. Merely that honour calls out to honour, and dishonour encourages the same, or so I have often found it.
The time it took us to take those three ships cost us any chance of snapping up any more Ionians. So we turned, left our masts down, and rowed a little north of west onto the beaches by Cape Zoster. We landed early enough, but it was a major chore fetching water from the one creek big enough and deep enough to water us, and there were neither shepherds nor sheep to feed more than three thousand men.
However, we were well prepared, with dried meat and sausage. I saw to it my own people were fed and then we squandered our reserves on our captives.
Cimon and I had a meeting over garlic sausage and onions and very, very good wine.
‘It’s like going to a good symposium at a poor man’s house,’ Cimon joked. ‘We spent all our money on the wine!’
‘We need some merchants full of supplies. Mine are all running in the Bay of Corinth.’ I shrugged.
Cimon nodded. ‘What are we going to do with our captures?’ he asked.
‘Ransom the trierarchs and let the rest go,’ I said. ‘If we’re lenient, we might pick up more and we won’t have to fight.’
Cimon chewed a bit of gristle and spat. ‘Just what I was thinking. I’m going to be a very poor oligarch, friend. I enjoy this far too much.’
‘Stealing money from those too weak to defend it and spending it all on symposia and flute girls?’ I chided him. ‘You’ll be the perfect oligarch.’
‘You were right, too,’ he said. ‘We beat the Medes.’
The stars were rising. I could hear Phayllos, who was already friends with Brasidas, laughing his deep laugh.
‘I don’t want to be Tyrant in Athens,’ Cimon said suddenly. ‘I don’t give a shit. I’m ruined, and my father would be enraged. I want this — for ever. I want to sail and sail, to beat Persia every day, to conquer them and rule a great empire.’ He paused. And grinned — self-knowledge is always the best tonic, or so Heraclitus used to say. ‘All that on one cup of good wine. I’m sorry, my friend. What do you want?’
‘I want Briseis,’ I said. Indeed, I felt like a young man, with his first woman before him — and I felt the cold hand of time and fortune on me, too. She might already be dead, with some eunuch’s hands round her lovely throat. I had not hurried, or so I told myself when I was honest.
Cimon laughed. ‘You are consistent, I’ll give you that.’
After a pause, he said, ‘I expect we’ll get more surrenders tomorrow.’
I sat with my back against a rock, still warm from the sun. ‘I can take the Chians home and the Lesbians too. I can use them as cover when I move into Ephesus. If I get ransoms out of them, so much the better.’
Cimon nodded. ‘Well, I got two good ones, ten days’ pay for all my rowers in each ship.’
I smiled. I knew something Cimon did not know and I had no reason to tell him. I remembered his father all too well. All Cimon had to do was say ‘walk with me’ and he’d be Miltiades come to life.
‘So you are content that I keep mine and you keep yours?’ I asked.
‘Seems simple,’ Cimon said.
While we were talking, more allied ships appeared. They were from the northern column, and we had Themistocles with us, and Eurybiades, in an hour. I fed them both sausage and Eurybiades opened an amphora of good Aeolian wine and we sat at a small campfire. Siccinius waited on us.
Probably the most remarkable thing was that as we all settled in to drink, Brasidas came up — and Eurybiades greeted him by name, rising as if Brasidas was one of the peers.
After a hesitation so brief that I think I’m the only one to have noticed it, Brasidas accepted this and saluted Eurybiades as one man does another and then settled comfortably, as if this was not an epochal event in his relations with his former city.
It was a fine fire, and just because I know that Themistocles was a black traitor didn’t mean he could not be good company, especially when he was relaxed and victorious. Eurybiades treated him with deference, which he craved. I was polite.
But when the opportunity came, I pounced. I made the face men make when they want to piss, and leaped to my feet. Then I followed Siccinius a few paces into the darkness, to where he and two of my sailors had set a couple of boards over three small rocks and put wine on them for serving — like a crude symposium, in truth.
But I didn’t have to chase him. In fact, when he saw me coming, he placed his amphora on the side table, gave orders about mixing the water and the wine, and then beckoned me, and we went around a great boulder — some god or some titan had thrown it there, no doubt — and it was he, not I, who began.
‘Will you truly see me a free man?’ he asked.
‘I will,’ I said, not only because I would, but because I knew he had something important to say. Even in the darkness, everything from his posture to his voice betrayed his tension and his emotion.
‘The Great King is running for home,’ he said. ‘He is going overland — with half his army.’
I stroked my beard. ‘How do you know?’ I said. I raised my hand for silence. ‘I mean, do you know, or were you simply told?’
‘I saw the horses prepared, I heard him order Mardonius into motion, and I heard the orders he gave Artaphernes.’
It was too dark to read his face, but I could guess.
‘You know how important Artaphernes is to me,’ I said.
‘I know he is your enemy,’ he said. ‘Lord Cyrus could scarcely hide that. And let me say, my lord — I have earned your citizenship. I took a risk, a very real risk, in approaching Lord Cyrus.’
‘Really?’ I asked as urbanely as I could manage. ‘A smart boy like you should have used my request as a cover for his whole mission.’
Silence passed, like time, but heavier.
‘What do you want me to say?’ he asked.
‘I want you to tell me the truth,’ I said. ‘Did you speak face to face with Cyrus?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
Most men give themselves away when they lie. It is a simple thing, but liars tell stories and truth-tellers say things like ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Some men are verbose by nature so it is not an absolute law, but it is a good guide.
‘And what order did Xerxes give to Artaphernes?’ I asked.